Question about Banglejs 2 HRM capability

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  • I was on the verge of getting an Amazfit Bip S and stumbled upon banglejs yesterday. I am really interested in it, sadly I missed the kickstarter.

    One of the updates on the Kickstarter page say

    FITNESS

    Bangle.js will log steps, movement and heart rate (if enabled) every
    10 minutes, 24 hours a day, and can export the data to CSV files.
    However initially you won’t get the same ‘insights’ or app integration
    that you would from something like a FitBit.

    Bangle.js can log GPS,
    steps, heart rate into GPX files which can then be imported into apps
    like Strava, but again integration won’t be as smooth as on some other
    devices.

    Bangle.js’s heart rate monitor needs your arm to be still to
    get an accurate reading. This will improve with software updates in
    the future but right now it’s not suitable for heart rate measurements
    while running (for example).

    The heart rate monitor is the main thing that sent me on a smart watch search, so I would like to ask:
    Does the first point mean the watch can only provide a heart rate reading every 10 minutes? Can an app request it more often to show something more continuous?

    Does the final point mean that at some point Bangle.js HRM will be good enough to take measurements while running, or should I stop considering this watch before I get even more excited than I am already?

  • There is a Heart Rate monitor app, whi monitors in real time. The information above relates to a health data trend logger which can be set to collect every 10mins or other user definable period.

  • As @HughB says, you can log all the time.

    Right now the heart rate monitor still uses a reasonably high amount of power (it can flatten the battery in ~2 days if fully on) so to eke out the battery a bit more we only turn it on for a minute of so every 10 minutes - but it should get better with a software update.

  • Thanks for the replies, that makes sense.

  • Is there any documentation for the HR sensor anywhere? I am falling into a rabbit hole of curiosity about what is possible, I'd be interested to know what exactly the sensor outputs. I have tried searching for it but am mostly finding products that use it, rather than details of the sensor itself.

  • I'm afraid not - the VC31 is amazingly badly documented and pretty much everything had to be reverse engineered.

    I literally just got hold of a Chinese language datasheet a few days ago, but I still need to work out if I'm ok to share that.

  • I'll keep my eyes open in case you do. I had a poke about the relevant code in GitHub earlier. Looking forward to seeing how things develop. Nothing about this has convinced me not to get a Bangle.JS 2 when more are available (if anything it has me mentally planning away time I haven't got to play with heart sensor algorithms :/).

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Question about Banglejs 2 HRM capability

Posted by Avatar for myownself @myownself

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